POLITICUSUSA
Back in 2016, the GOP ceded the Republican party to Donald Trump and they have never gotten it back. As a result, the new faces of the party are people like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert.
A tiny percentage of Republican lawmakers have tried to push back against the Trump takeover. Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney are two of those members. Both are sitting on the 1/6 panel studying the insurrection.
As horrible as the events of 1/6 were, the vast majority of Republican lawmakers would like people to forget about it. A select few GOP congresspeople were willing to investigate the matter.
Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney both accepted Nancy Pelosi’s invitation to participate in the 1/6 panel. And for their service to their country, they were branded “Pelosi Republicans.”
Representative Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) said the House select committee tasked with investigating the events of January 6 must uncover everything that happened at the White House that day as well.
Investigators must figure out “what happened every minute of that day in the White House — every phone call, every conversation, every meeting leading up to, during and after the attack,” Cheney said in opening remarks at the committee’s first public hearing.
Representative Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) announced that her campaign raised nearly $1.9 million in the second quarter of 2021, a fundraising record despite being ousted by House Republicans from her leadership position earlier this year. The amount of money beats the $1.5 million Cheney raised in the first quarter of 2021. She also announced that she has $2.85 million in cash on hand for her reelection campaign in 2022.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has announced that Representative Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), one of only two Republicans to vote for the formation of a committee to investigate the insurrection of January 6, has been appointed to the committee.
Representative Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) appeared on “The Axe Files with David Axelrod” and denounced former President Donald Trump for committing what she said is the worst violation of the oath of office when he incited an insurrection against Congress on January 6.
Supporters of Donald Trump are more than willing to use violence to get their way. This became clear when a mob of Trump fans engaged in an insurrection on the Capitol building on January 6th.
And that means that opponents of the former president, whether they be Democrats or Republicans, have to take their security seriously. Liz Cheney, formerly the Chair of the House Republican Conference, recently became the face of the anti-Trump movement. And according to a new report from the Hill, she’s been paying big bucks to stay safe.
Of course, these Republicans, strenuously posing as “principled,” remain quiet about their own election-stealing strategy, even as it sits ponderously front and center as the proverbial elephant in the American political arena.
Donald Trump brought a lot of new people into the Republican party. Despite losing the 2020 election, he still received the second most votes in American history.
At the same time, many have left the party because of Trump. And that includes a number of former campaign strategists. On Wednesday Nicolle Wallace talked to some of those strategists about how the GOP should move forward.
Tim Miller told the host, “People who want their political careers to keep going are willing to lie for him. Some of these are working in politics, not just voters, but voters are part of a cult now. The cognitive dissonance doesn’t really matter now any more than the cognitive dissonance of what David Koresh was telling his followers what mattered to them. “
Matthew Dowd took it a step further. “First, Adam Kinzinger, Liz Cheney, Mitt Romney, all who have spoken out need to leave their caucus,” he said,. “By staying in their caucus, all they are doing is enabling the fact that the people who committed the big lie will hold power in 2022. Yeah, it’s fine to say, ‘I have a big problem with this,’ but leave the caucus. You have to leave the cult in order to disempower the cult.”
Former Bush strategist Matthew Dowd calls on Adam Kinzinger, Mitt Romney and Liz Cheney need to leave the Republican party. pic.twitter.com/Rs8Q3k9aoN
— PoliticusUSA (@politicususa) May 27, 2021
In some ways, it feels like John McCain was the last Republican willing to stand up to Donald Trump. And his close friends in the party, like Lindsey Graham, have turned their backs on what the Arizona senator stood for.
Cindy McCain has certainly continued her husband’s legacy of bucking Trump. She made a video for the Democratic National Convention and later publicly endorsed Joe Biden. That earned her a censure from the Arizona Republican party.
During a recent appearance on Stephen Colbert’s show, McCain discussed the GOP’s treatment of Liz Cheney. My husband, she said, would be very disappointed in the current state of the GOP.
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It’s odd, now our party seems to be rewarding bad behavior and then trashing those who tell the truth and are honest about what’s actually going on,” she said. “We have lost our way. Our party is in such disarray right now.”
Trumpism, in fact, has provided a fortuitous opening for the Republican Party establishment to salvage its own perfidious conservatism by providing a kind of straw man for the establishment.
This weeks drama in the House of Representatives showed the differences in leadership style between Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell. McCarthy has been completely compromised by Donald Trump.
When the former president first incited the January 6th insurrection, McCarthy called him out. But after the House Minority Leader was called down to Mar-a-Lago, he came back to Washington fully on board with team Trump.
McConnell has largely ignored Trump and acted as if senate Republicans are completely prepared to move on without him. And when the Senate Minority Leader was asked about Liz Cheney, recently punished by McCarthy for bashing Trump, he paid her a nice compliment.
Fox News asked the Kentucky lawmaker if he still felt Cheney was an “important leader in our party and our nation?”
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Well, there is no change,” he responded.
After House Republicans voted to oust Representative Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) from her conference chair position––which effectively made her the third most powerful Republican in the chamber––Cheney vowed to do “everything I can” to keep former President Donald Trump from taking office again.
Cheney was removed for not backing the former president’s falsehoods about the 2020 general election. She issued a defiant statement after the GOP ousted her via voice vote.
“I will do everything I can to ensure that the former president never again never gets anywhere near the Oval Office,” she said. “We have seen the danger that he continues to provoke with his language. We have seen his lack of commitment and dedication to the Constitution. And I think it’s very important that we make sure whomever we elect is somebody that will be faithful to the Constitution.”
She also criticized members of her own party for supporting the baseless claim that the election was fraudulent.
“We must go forward based on truth. We cannot both embrace the big lie and embrace the Constitution,” Cheney said. “The nation needs a party that is based upon fundamental principles of conservatism. And I am committed and dedicated to ensuring that that’s how this party goes forward and I plan to lead the fight to do that. We’ve got to get back to a place where we are a party that can fight for conservative principles that can fight for substance. We cannot be dragged backward by the very dangerous lies of a former president.”
Liz Cheney immediately after she was ousted from House leadership: "I will do everything I can to ensure that the former president never again gets anywhere near the Oval Office." pic.twitter.com/mxrPHqtRup
When Donald Trump first took office, there was little Republican resistance against him. There was John McCain of course. There was also push-back from Tennessee’s Bob Corker.
But Jeff Flake was commonly the loudest Republican voice against Trump. The Arizona lawmaker retired in 2018 and has continued to distance himself from the GOP. Flake announced that he was endorsing Joe Biden for president in August of last year.
And the lawmaker has continued to speak out about what’s become of his party. On Tuesday, he wrote a scathing Washington Post op-ed about the treatment of Liz Cheney.
Flake began, “She (Cheney) will lose her position because she is refusing to play her assigned role in propagating the ‘big lie’ that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump. Cheney is more dedicated to the long-term health of our constitutional system than she is to assuaging the former president’s shattered ego, and for her integrity she may well pay with her career.”
The former senator continued, “No, this is not the plot of a movie set in an asylum. Ladies and gentlemen, this is your contemporary Republican Party, where today there is no greater offense than honesty.”
"It is elementary to have to say this, but we did not become a great nation by believing or espousing nonsense, or by embracing lunacy. And if my party continues down this path, we will not be fit to govern."https://t.co/1Qz8QOuYfX
The Republican party is nowadays, the party of Donald Trump and white grievance. And if anyone speaks out against Trump’s ideals, they need to be punished immediately.
The latest member on the firing squad is Liz Cheney. While Cheney can’t lose her job as a congresswoman, GOP Reps. will soon remove her from her leadership position. And Trump’s pick for the new Chair of the House Republican Conference is Elise Stefanik.
According to those in the know, Stefanik has the votes to become the next chair. That does not mean, however, that all House Republicans are behind her. On Tuesday, Chip Roy (R-TX) wrote a memo slamming the New York congresswoman.
The Texas lawmaker sent a message to colleagues that read, “
We must avoid putting in charge Republicans who campaign as Republicans but then vote for and advance the Democrats
Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell have very different leadership styles. Since Trump left office in January, McConnell and Republican senators have barely mentioned him (outside of lap-dog Lindsey Graham). Kevin McCarthy and GOP congresspeople, however, mention Trump every chance they get.
And there is also a big difference in how GOP senators and congresspeople are treating the issue of Liz Cheney. Most Reps. have been more than willing to throw Cheney under the bus, happy to see her punished for his disloyalty to Trump. But on Monday, one of the most prominent Republicans in the senate came to the Wyoming congresswoman’s defense.
Joni Ernst told reporters, “I think it’s important that we not all be typecast as, you know, this opinion is OK to express, but this is not. I think we all have our own things that we want to talk about and express. I think that’s Ok, but at the end of the day we’ve got to come together as Republicans.”
GOP Sen Joni Ernst stands up for Liz Cheney:
“I feel it's okay to go ahead and express what you feel is right to express and, you know, cancel culture is cancel culture, no matter how you look at it.”
In a letter to lawmakers, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) announced that House Republicans would vote on whether to oust Representative Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) this Wednesday.
“This is no time to take our eye off the ball. If we are to succeed in stopping the radical Democrat agenda from destroying our country, these internal conflicts need to be resolved so as not to detract from the efforts of our collective team,” McCarthy wrote. “Having heard from so many of you in recent days, it’s clear that we need to make a change. As such, you should anticipate a vote on recalling the Conference Chair this Wednesday.
The contents of the letter were first reported by Punchbowl News.
🚨🚨 BREAKING: @GOPLeader has sent a letter about recalling @Liz_Cheney.
"Having heard from so many of you in recent days, it’s clear that we need to make a change. As such, you should anticipate a vote on recalling the Conference Chair this Wednesday.” pic.twitter.com/P0Euyl2wM3
The problem Cheney and the other never-Trumpers have with Trump and the current Republican Party is that it has exposed the reality of the traditional GOP, pulled back the curtain of dignified phrases and codes to reveal its anti-egalitarian, racist, and undemocratic character.
There’s a reason why Donald Trump has remained the most powerful figure in the Republican party and it has nothing to do with his political ability. It has to do with the former President’s rabid group of supporters and their willingness to do anything he tells them to.
So when Trump said he wanted Elise Stefanik to take Liz Cheney’s leadership position in Congress, it was expected MAGA world would fall in line. But they haven’t done so. In fact, there was significant push-back today to the idea of Stefanik become the next Chair of the House Republican Conference.
Lou Dobbs, the former Fox host who recently lost his job, sent out an article which attacked Stefanik. He captioned the message, “RINO Games Destroying the GOP: Elise Stefanik, GOP conference chair favorite, voted with Trump less than Liz Cheney.”
RINO Games Destroying the GOP: Elise Stefanik, GOP conference chair favorite, voted with Trump less than Liz Cheney https://t.co/RtkQt8xLgx #FoxNews
— Lou Dobbs (@LouDobbs) May 5, 2021
The idea of Stefanik was also criticized by Trump worlders like Ann Coulter, Raheem Kassam and former Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis.
Like many others, the Columbia Bugle, a pro-Trump Twitter account, cited Stefanik’s voting record and tweeted, “Replacing Cheney with Stefanik is just replacing an America Last Republican with a slightly less annoying America Last Republican.”
Replacing Cheney with Stefanik is just replacing an America Last Republican with a slightly less annoying America Last Republican. https://t.co/5H6zyc7TpQ
Meghan McCain‘s father John McCain was one of the most revered Republicans of his day. He was often referred to as a Maverick due to his willingness to buck the party line.
Liz Cheney attempted to be a post-Trump maverick back in January of this year. And for voting her conscience, she has been pilloried by the Republican party.
During Wednesday’s episode of The View, McCain’s daughter Meghan warned of consequences for the GOP if they remove Cheney from power within their party.
The host vowed that women voters will notice how Cheney was treated. “The message that’s being sent by the highest member of Republicans in Congress is that women like me and Liz Cheney, who refuse to bend the knee to President Trump but still remain loyal Republicans — we don’t have a place in this party.”
.@MeghanMcCain: “The message that’s being sent by the highest member of Republicans in Congress is that women like me and Liz Cheney, who refuse to bend the knee to President Trump but still remain loyal Republicans — we don’t have a place in this party.” pic.twitter.com/pe0aE0p5nD
